whitepaper the competitive advantage of corporate performance

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1.0 1/12/2004 Final Rob van Agteren Jaap Drenth

Whitepaper The competitive advantage of

Corporate Performance Management


Content The Search for Competitive Advantage ...........................................................3

CPM: next in line of management theories ............................................................ 3 CPM: Adding Value to Business............................................................................ 4 CPM: What's Involved? ......................................................................................... 4

Components of the Solution.............................................................................6 Bridging the gap between Strategy and Execution ................................................ 6

Measures........................................................................................................... 6 Processes.......................................................................................................... 6 People ............................................................................................................... 7 Technology........................................................................................................ 7

The CPM Solution............................................................................................8 The System to support the formulation, communication and monitoring of strategy (Balanced Scorecard)............................................................................................ 8 Process Management.......................................................................................... 11 Scenario Planning/Cost Control........................................................................... 12 Risk Management ............................................................................................... 14 Characteristics of CPM Systems ......................................................................... 15

Modular practical approach............................................................................16 The power of integrating processes, costs, risk and measurement in strategy and execution............................................................................................................. 17


The Search for Competitive Advantage In the quest for competitive advantage, organizations continually search for the next "big thing," that application, service, business methodology, or unique way of using technology that will catapult them ahead of their competitors and reward them with increased profits. In a volatile business climate where product life cycles are shrinking and global markets make it easier for new competitors to capture market share, that search - and its result - becomes critical to the organization's survival.

Into this arena comes yet another new business term: "Corporate Performance Management" or CPM for short. Initially coined by Gartner, the Stamford, Connecticut-based research and advisory firm, they use this umbrella term to describe "the methodologies, metrics, processes and systems used to monitor and manage the business performance of an enterprise."

But in many respects this doesn't seem to be anything new. After all, organizations have always sought to manage their performance. The critical difference that CPM brings today is the integration of processes, metrics and systems. It is a corporate wide strategy that seeks to align departmental initiatives to prevent managers from optimizing local business at the expense of overall corporate performance. It is not a “one-off” project but an ongoing process – part of the daily work of managers.

In this paper Ackinas shows its way of interpreting CPM and that, with the support of the modern technology and a pragmatic implementation approach, the highest corporate maturity level can be reached with relatively low investments.

Ackinas - CPM helps organizations to implement their strategy and streamline processes and financials into a continuous optimum, through short projects delivering sound results and supported with best of breed software solutions.

CPM: next in line of management theories The past decades we have experienced a lot of theories that supported managers in improving results. In the fifties, in rebuilding society after the war, everything that could be produced could be sold. In the ’60 and ’70 overcapacities in production became a fact in many industries and marketing theories became important to conquer and protect market share. Lately, optimizing logistics (supply chain management) and shareholder-value demand a more integrated approach for organizations to be competitive. Competitive organizations have to:

• control their processes; • be lean with good planning and control cycle; • have a transparent relation between costs and activities; • optimize performance; • know and manage potential strategic and operational risks

This way the organization is able to lay out a strategy (= what do I have to do tomorrow to be more successful), see the total consequences of different scenario’s and translate the strategy into operational actions.


In the past decades several management theories, to improve the performance of organizations, have been introduced:

• Total quality management/change (ISO 9000, EFQM, Six Sigma...) • Business process redesign • Logistic theories (JIT – MRP – supply chain management) • Strategic costs analysis – Activity based costing – Cost Management - … • Performance management – Balanced Score Card - …

CPM connects a vast majority of these management theories, where managers can optimize the activities related to their role in the organization. A lot of value can evaporate when operational managers are not aligned to the corporate strategy. • How is the mission of the company translated in

specific objectives; • How does an organization set a well balanced set

of objectives derived from the corporate strategy and communicate them to the organization;

• How does the planning and control cycle fit in • How do scenario analysis and forecasting fit in • How are internal and external risks managed • How are the processes actively connected with

(strategic) cost management, reporting (scorecarding) and risks

• How can an organization replace corpulent reporting by structured integrated management solutions

CPM: Adding Value to Business

CPM adds value to the business by focusing on how an organization develops, implements and monitors strategic plans. This strategic focus is kept throughout all management processes, right down to the contribution individual budget holders make.

CPM is about the efficient and effective execution of the strategic plan. When this focus is combined with the available technologies, studies indicate that organizational performance is greatly enhanced.

CPM: What's Involved?

As mentioned earlier, CPM takes a holistic approach to the implementation and monitoring of strategy. It combines business methodologies such as scorecards and activity based management; metrics that are the specific measures used within those methodologies; processes, which are the procedures that an organization follows to implement and monitor corporate performance; risks management, which assesses the likelihood and impact of future events, be they favorable or unfavorable, and monitors the execution of mitigation plans; and systems, which are the technology solutions that combine the methodologies, metrics, risk-mitigations and processes into a single corporate-wide management system.

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Figure 1: CPM integrates processes, costs, risks and performance management; both in strategy and in operations.


A CPM system differs from other approaches to performance management in that it leverages both technology and best business practices to help executives answer the key questions around the formulation and effective implementation of strategy.

CPM answers the key questions around implementing and monitoring strategy execution A CPM system enables a closed-loop process that starts with understanding where the organization is today, where it wants to go to, what targets should be set, and how resources should be allocated to achieve those targets. Once plans have been set and communicated to the organization, the system then monitors the performance of those plans, highlights exceptions, and provides insight as to why they occurred. The system supports the evaluation of alternatives from which decisions can be made -- which then closes the loop by leading back to deciding on where the organization wants to go.

To support the formulation and implementation of strategy, which is a continuous process, a CPM application begins by integrating company-wide planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, and analysis. It supports methodologies for linking strategy to the allocation of assets (financial and non-financial) so that strategies can be transformed into action. A CPM application enables executives to communicate and drive strategy down throughout the entire organization in a way that helps people act and make decisions that support the strategic goals. Finally, it helps members of the organization focus on key issues and critical data, rather than on all the data and events that are possible. It delivers the right information to the right people at the right time in the right context.


Components of the Solution

So what's involved in implementing an effective CPM solution? How do organizations move from traditional business management processes to those that encompass CPM?

Bridging the gap between Strategy and Execution

To bridge the gap between strategy and execution, four different areas of management need to be aligned: Measures, Processes, People and Technology. Aligning two or even three of these areas is not enough -- all four need to be addressed.

Measures

To begin with, organizations need to plan and measure the right things. For example, if customer satisfaction is an essential part of your business, then it is obvious that business activities that focus on keeping customers satisfied should be planned and measured. A sad fact is that most organizations rely mainly of financial measures -- take a look at your typical monthly management report. The chances are that it shows this year actual vs. this year budget by summary chart of accounts. And that's the level most people budget at -- by financial account. The trouble with this is that financial accounts are typically the result of actions and not the actions themselves. It's like looking at a garage bill that shows the cost of the service -- but not what was actually carried out. This means that when a variance occurs or a desired result is not achieved, you do not know what caused the variance. For example, was the action fully carried out?

Check out your own budgets, reports and forecasts -- are you measuring the right things -- the things that drive value in your organization?

Processes

Once an organization has decided on the right measures, they need to decide on what targets should be set and how they are going to be delivered. To do this organizations typically invoke the processes of strategy formulation (i.e., deciding on how to achieve the target measures); planning (deciding on exactly what actions or tactical plans will be required to implement the chosen strategies); budgeting (allocating resources to those tactical plans); management reporting (monitoring the actions and results of the tactical plans ability to reach the target measures); forecasting (to see if the target measures set over time are still on course to be achieved); and finally analysis (to see where the variances are and to decide on what to do about them).


Now this explanation seems very logical -- but we challenge you to see how your own processes of strategic planning, budgeting, management reporting, forecasting and analysis actually stand up to that description. Can you see in each process the action plans of how each measure is going to be delivered? Sadly, too many management processes are financially focused rather than focused on actions to deliver specific measures. Without this focus, performance becomes something that just happens, rather than being driven by management action.

People

People are nearly always responsible for the results they produce. And the reverse is also true -- to produce desired results requires people to do the right things. But quite often, incentives paid to people are often at odds with an organization's strategy. Consider the following: The aim of most organizations is to beat the competition and yet we often reward people on beating the budget. As a result, employees will focus their attention during the budget process of minimizing revenues and maximizing costs. Even worse, if those budgets are not aligned with strategy -- for example the revenue budget is set to grow 5% year a year when the economic climate actually grows by 15% -- we are now rewarding people for achieving below market growth while our competitors take market share from us.

Incentives should always be set on individual ability to implement action plans that meet or exceed strategic goals. These goals in turn must reflect what the organization wants to achieve in the ever changing business environment in which it operates.

Technology

The role of technology is to enable the CPM process to deliver strategic goals. Strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting and monitoring actual, are all part of the same process -- moving an organization towards achieving its desired goals.

The trouble is that most organizations implement them as discreet and separate processes often using different and incompatible technologies. For example, a Word document may be used to capture the strategic plan, spreadsheets used to enter budgets, the general ledger to report actual while a general purpose OLAP tool is used to analyze variances. Four different systems, four different technologies, resulting in four separate versions of the truth. Some poor soul now has to make these fit together in order to answer questions such as: Which products are forecasted to be the most profitable compared to last year.

CPM exploits technology by combining all the management processes into a single, closed loop application focused on the implementation of strategy.


The CPM Solution

Ackinas supports its CPM solution through an integrated suite of software tools. Strategy Formulation and Performance management is supported by the Balanced Scorecard system QPR Scorecard, a fully integrated Process Management solution is supported by QPR-Process Guide, Scenario planning, simulation, budgeting and forecasting is supported by the cost management solution QPR-CostControl and Ackinas has completed its CPM solution with the integrated Strategic and Operational Risk management solution of BWise (IC and ORM). The communication and collaboration part is fulfilled by the QPR Portal. This way technology enables managers to really start to actively manage corporate performance.

The System to support the formulation, communication and monitoring of strategy (Balanced Scorecard).

Most Software vendors of CPM solutions aim to provide integrated applications that support all of the basic processes of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) -- from the formulation of strategy, through implementation, monitoring, forecasting and reporting on progress. But for the most part, these rely on the collecting and reporting of measures either by some kind of table or in a graphical 'stop-light' format.


Apart from the entering of budget/forecast numbers, many of these systems are basically reporting systems. While these reports are great for telling us what happened, they are of limited value when it comes to managing the business. The reason is: They tell us what happened but tells us nothing about the actions or the

relationships that produced them. They are predominantly about the past and provide little or no information about

what needs to happen in the future. They are an accounting-based view of the world -- and not directly related to the

activities of operational managers -- activities that determine future results. And finally, there is no way of knowing from this report if strategy is being

executed or even how successful it has been in generating the results obtained.

What they lack is the ability of senior management to communicate organizational objectives and high level strategies to which operational managers can build tactical plans that have a clear 'cause and affect' relationship to those organizational objectives.

Kaplan and Norton in their follow-up book to The Balanced Scorecard The Strategy Focused Organization said this about management systems. "Organizations need a new kind of management system -- one explicitly designed to manage strategy ..."

This is what the Ackinas CPM solution is, it is a Strategy Management System, in fact the first solution to integrate Performance management with Process management, Risk management and Activity based management (Scenario Planning and cost management)

Managing performance is all about planning and managing the activities that support strategic goals. To manage the business, we need answers to these questions while planning:

What are we trying to achieve? How are we going to achieve the goals? What actions need to take place? Who is going to be responsible? How 'balanced' is the plan in terms of business perspectives and priorities? Can the current plan be implemented in the timescale set?

And as the plan goes into operation we need answers to: How well did the plan work? Were the tactical plans implemented? How successful were the tactics at achieving strategic goals? How did individuals contribute to the creation of shareholder value? How did the individual units contribute to the success of the plan? What would be the impact if some tactics are not completely implemented?

From a management perspective, there are a number of methodologies that can help organizations formulate, communicate and then monitor strategy. These


methodologies move away from managing the business from an accounting view and instead focus on activities that support strategic goals.

They do this by translating strategy into an action plan that can be measured and monitored. These action plans are typically organized into 'cause and effect' which is important as it allows organizations to plan by considering actions and their affect on strategic goals. The Balanced Scorecard methodology breaks down the enterprise vision and mission into strategic objectives that can be categorized in various perspectives. Theoretically, there are 4 perspectives -- financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth -- which are used to make sure that the plan covers all areas of the business that are essential for its survival.

The Ackinas Software solutions are designed specifically for the corporate development, communication and monitoring of strategy. They enable senior management to define corporate objectives and overall strategies, to which operational management can then build supporting tactical plans to achieve those corporate goals.

Once built, the plan can be assessed for overall 'cause and effect' viability and can be modified as required throughout the year. The tools have very innovative and intuitive ways of communicating and visualizing the plan. The tools combine the numerical reporting of budgets and management reports with an intuitive way of visualizing the actions that support those results. In so doing the tools are able to provide answers to questions that traditional budgets and reports typically cannot answer. Answers such as: What actions are needed to produce the desired results; what actions actually took place, and were those actions effective.

The Ackinas software tools provide a clear linkage between strategic goals and detailed operational plans


The system comes with a range of reports that allow plans to be viewed from multiple perspectives. These reports show whether the plan is working and the status of individual tactics. They show the effect that those tactics have on achieving corporate goals and allows those accountable to see how well they are performing.

In addition to the 'cause and affect' relationships, the 'plan objects' can hold a range of information including start and end dates, the person responsible for delivering the goal, notes, attachments and 'drill-thru' linkages to traditional reports and analyses.

In summary, the Ackinas CPM tool focuses on 'cause and effect' relationships is set to change the way management formulate, plan and monitor strategy. We provide management with an effective tool in which to manage corporate performance.

Process Management « Process Management is managing systematic continuous improvement of processes in order to create added value and benefits for the customer and other stakeholders. » Process Management is about improving profitability while at the same time improving quality, and therefore also customer satisfaction. Many organizations suffer from the following 2 major illnesses: • The individual workers have lost sight of the customer: they tend to work for their

boss, or for their colleague, but they are not aware anymore of the value, or non-value, that they create for their business’ customers; especially in larger organizations, the customer focus was lost over the years.

• The individual workers do their work in a given way, because they have always done it that way; it is amazing to see how most people don’t know how their job fits in the larger picture; not many people in an organization have an end-to-end overview of the business processes they are working in.

Process Management tries to remedy the 2 challenges:


• It puts the customer back into focus, by first identifying him, and then measuring his Satisfaction;

• It questions the way things happen in the process to eliminate all inefficiencies and measuring the progress;

Any organization can increase the satisfaction of its customers and increase the profitability of the company by applying these principles to all of its processes. When an organization pursues these objectives consistently for all its processes, it creates a long-term value that goes beyond the immediate objective of higher quality and higher profitability. Intelligent Business Management is characterized by: Definition of improvement objectives in line with the overall strategy; Definition of measures in line with the overall strategy; Company wide process improvement exercises; all processes must pass the test; Management decisions based on feed-forward mechanisms that use the objectives and actual measures from the processes; Use of Active Scorecards down to the individual level, linked to personal objectives;

Process Management streamlines operations and makes the whole corporation more efficient, by documenting business processes to drive high quality and operational efficiency. Continuous process analysis and improvements strengthens the competitive advantages of your organization.

QPR ProcessGuide is an easy to use, multi-level process management tool. It allows an unlimited number of users to create and maintain process models, then publish models as dynamic web pages. To make processes even more informative, users can attach information items to process maps. This gives the user the ability not only to access the graphical process maps, but also to view and download documents, follow Internet hyperlinks, and open third party software. QPR ProcessGuide is a knowledge management system – collecting vital corporate information in one place for functional, strategic, and tactical use. QPR ProcessGuide also provides powerful analysis and simulation capabilities. Simulating processes helps streamline operations and efficiently allocate resources – saving time and money.

Scenario Planning/Cost Control The need for company cost reduction has increased considerably due to

strong (global) competition. This is also the case in public organizations where pressure on the budget has increased considerably. Manpower and operating cost


reductions are the classical elements that have been executed by most organizations. The quest for innovative solutions to improve cost control and create reliable budgets and forecasts is growing.

Costs cannot be controlled as such. Costs are derived from processes and activities executed by the organization.

Many organizations yet present monthly financial reports showing the classical P/L cost elements like the cost of personnel, accommodation, energy, maintenance, IT, et cetera. But how can we use this information to manage these costs in the future? To what extend can we really influence the costs as presented in the monthly reports?

The best way to cut costs is to look at the processes involved and analyze what can be improved in order to improve efficiency. Organizing the transparency between processes, the alternatives, the related costs and revenues is the way to achieve an optimal result. The best result can be achieved if external processes (customer/supplier process) are involved in the analyses, when you address issues like:

• How does the way the customers behave or their specific requirements influence my profitability; what should we re-negotiate and what will be the financial effect?

• What do we earn with what products or customers or combination of the two; 80% of the profit is earned with 20% of the customers, products or combination;

• In case we change the way we create a service / product or alter the composition, what will be the effect on profitability?

Ackinas’ approach makes it possible to answer these questions. The processes can be changed and at the same time the effect on value creation is clarified. This way management can concentrate on adapting the processes both in operational (forecasting) as in strategic discussions (scenario-building). Activity based costing is realized by pulling costs from the customers / products instead of pushing costs from cost items to products (the traditional ABC). This is also referred to as Activity based Budgeting and Activity based Management.

QPR CostControl is powerful and flexible Activity Based Costing/Management (ABC/M) software tool. QPR CostControl has been developed in co-operation with numerous world class organizations and universities in order to guarantee its usability and performance in modeling and analyzing costs and actions in all kinds of organizations. QPR CostControl’s advanced analysis capabilities provide you with the relevant information in a customized, easy to understand structured format. Drill-down functions provide a directly traceable means of analyzing and acting on cause and effect relationships in your organization, from the activities that were performed through to the resources utilized. In addition, a full validation report ensures the quality and confidence in the information. By simulating results at different production volumes you can discover how your resource costs change, the maximum volumes for the resources and how the

How can each process contribute to success and how are the processes interrelated.

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resource-usage in the activities change. Simulating different scenarios with QPR CostControl helps preparation for the future. QPR CostControl has been used

successfully in the following application areas:

• Pricing of upcoming products • Product profitability analysis • Customer and distribution

channel profitability analysis • Activity and resource

utilization analysis • Budgeting and forecasting

Risk Management The primary objective of risk management is to identify the actions required to maximize likelihood of achieving organizational objectives. The objectives for ‘performance management’ are very similar, though emphasis is different: ‘good things’ vs ‘bad things’

Similarities suggest that there is value in integrating processes to manage performance and risk. The foundation must be a robust strategic control/ performance management system, where Risk is only one element that managers must control.

Risks are possible sources of uncertainty that might have a material impact on the company they occur. Most of them are identifiable and can be mitigated if properly managed. Potential risks are:

• Legal, political and regulatory issues • Shareholder relations • The effects of competition • Management competence • Health and safety • Product development • Staff fraud • Company reputation • Financial aspects of running a

business These strategic and operational risks can be linked to processes and integrated in the performance management through Key Risk indicators. Through processes the costs of preventing and handling risks can be made explicit. Risk management by itself contains actions to prevent risks and how to react upon in case they occur. Risk management increases the predictability of the companies’ performance.


BWise Operational Risk Management BWise launched a complete solution for setting up and managing an ORM environment. Everything leads directly to lower operational risks and significant efficiency savings. The main operational risks that can lead to losses are human error, fraud, late actions, conflict of interests, exceeding of authority or unethical and risky actions. Other aspects of operational risk include natural disasters or major failures in IT systems. BWise ORM helps companies to control and/or avoid losses in relationship with operational risks. BWise Compliance Control provides an integrated solution that provides an environment, which supports all parts of Compliance. Starting with Compliance Mapping (rules, regulation and organization), risk management, reporting and management and control of improvement plans. The Bwise risk management suite covers:

• Risk Assessment Definition • Predefined Key risk indicators and key performance indicators definition • Multi-dimensional risk reporting • Risk mitigation: definition and control of improvement projects • Risk Monitoring • Loss database • Audit Management • Change Management • Release Management

Characteristics of CPM Systems

CPM systems have the following characteristics:

1. Complete integration. The Ackinas CPM system encompasses strategy formulation/communication and monitoring, planning, budgeting, forecasting, process management, risk management, balanced scorecard reporting, and analysis, and treats them as a single, continuous process.

2. Enterprise-wide. The Ackinas CPM system is extensible across the company. The system is web based, making it possible for users to work from anywhere at any time.

3. Focus on exceptions. The Ackinas CPM system accommodates the reporting and analysis of both financial and non-financial data. The system focuses users' attention on the unanticipated by highlighting and proactively alerting them to exceptions.

4. Automate the processing of data. The Ackinas CPM system automates the processing of ratios, allocations and the consolidation of results.

5. Filter and format data. The Ackinas CPM system summarizes large volumes of data and presents it in a form that is easily understood for the purpose.


6. Provide end users with access to information. The Ackinas CPM system exploits the web and provides secure user access to any relevant information such as timetables, assumptions, comments, strategy, tactical plans, critical success factors, Key Performance Indicators, Key Risk Indicators, reports, analyses, actual, and forecast results. Information is easy to access and navigate online.

7. Support collaboration. The Ackinas CPM system is designed to allow users to collaborate with colleagues no matter where they are or what time it is.

8. Provide insight. The Ackinas CPM system links to strong analytical capabilities such as trend analysis, sorting, charting, and exception reporting, transforming data into insight.

9. Automate monitoring of vital signs. The Ackinas CPM system, can search underlying details on a continuous basis and proactively warn users when exceptions occur without a user ever having to look at a report.

By combining these characteristics, The Ackinas CPM application becomes a powerful management system. It allows executives to assess and communicate strategy; provide operational management with tools for developing effective plans; and give end users instructions and knowledge on how to perform their roles in implementing strategy.

Although CPM systems may improve efficiency, they cannot ensure effectiveness by themselves. They are only as good as the methodology, metrics, and processes that they support.

Modular practical approach Managers have two tasks: Formulate and communicate the strategy and oversee the execution of the strategy. Within these tasks we define 4 areas of attention: Processes, costs, risks and people (a part of which is performance measurement).

Ackinas has developed a modular approach to CPM. It starts with projects that answer to the discussions at hand whether they are the strategy formulation and translation to actions, the process management, the risk management, cost management of performance management (e.g. balanced scorecard).


The projects last about 2 months and deliver tangible results. The project can be completed with other light projects depending on the aspiration of management. So the above described CPM can be implemented stepwise. In doing so Ackinas believes maturity level 5 can be reached without it being a burden for the operation.

Ackinas has developed a maturity test, which is available on request. This test allows you to discover where your organization stands, and which elements of CPM should be implemented first, so that your company can gradually grow to the highest maturity level on all elements of CPM.

The power of integrating processes, costs, risk and measurement in strategy and execution. Imagine: • Your processes are fully in control and optimized with regard to costs and risks; • Your ambition can be brought in line with the available capacity, possible

financing, and the potential risks are in control; • You can play with scenario’s and have a structured and transparent view of the

effects on processes, profitability, risks and performance management of each scenario;

• You can steer your business through scorecards avoiding piles of paper in reporting.

And imagine you can realize this through: • Short and effective projects starting with a subject that will immediately create

value for your organization; • Pragmatic, complementary coaching, where your own people stay in the driving

seat • Low risk, high motivation and effect on the organization and • No army of consultants, no soup of theories and models and no piles of reports. Then you are imagining the service of Ackinas, using

1. well structured methodologies supported by 2. integrated software tools 3. a modular approach with isolated yet dependent projects leading to 4. a realistic plan for the organization to reach the highest maturity level.

Maturity Level

0,01,02,03,04,05,0

1. Strategy Formulation

2. Strategy Communication

3. Strategy Implementation

4. Process Management

5. Reporting Perspectives

6. Types of Process Indicators

7. Performance Evaluation

8. Indicator Communication

9. Risk Management

10. Cost Control

11. Budgeting of Initiatives

12. Compensation

whitepaper the competitive advantage of corporate performance

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